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Ludic geographies: not merely child’s play
Author(s) -
Woodyer Tara
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
geography compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.587
H-Index - 65
ISSN - 1749-8198
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2012.00477.x
Subject(s) - generosity , politics , phenomenon , space (punctuation) , representation (politics) , consciousness , sociology , mode (computer interface) , epistemology , aesthetics , political science , law , philosophy , computer science , linguistics , operating system
More often than not, play is assumed to be the activity of children. To date, this has limited academic engagements with play as a significant geographical concern in its own right. This paper challenges the common association of play with children through discussion of three frames of reference – play and the everyday, the politics of play, and how play exceeds representation – that are particularly instructive when developing broader conceptualisations of this phenomenon. In sketching out a broader space for ludic, or playful, geographies I am able to mark the critical and ethical potential of play, discussed here as a form of coming to consciousness and a way to be otherwise, and the cultivation of a mode of ethical generosity.